Smartphone Photography 101

Who needs a DSLR when you have a Smartphone? Seriously. Get smart with your smartphone and produce (almost) DSLR quality shots.

Smartphone photography also known as phone photography is the convenient way to capture images and share it directly on social media. In social media marketing, content is king, thus, copy writing and visuals are equally important in order to stand out among the millions of Instagrammers out there.

Have you ever come across a Facebook page and decided it wasn’t worth your precious like just because of the photos involved? A photo that is blurry, pixelated, and poorly crafted can have a profoundly negative impact on your fans (social media friends). Images matter on social media. So so much, so you better brush up on those phone photography skills to keep you high up on the news feed ladder.

CUSTOMIZE! Don’t rely on your phone’s default auto mode.

Before you snap a photo, know your phone cams settings. Auto mode is the easiest and a no-brainier approach where you only need to tap and snap. However, you can improve the overall quality of your images by tweaking the settings. Although phone settings differs on each model, you should be able to control the focus, exposure, white balance, and ISO.

HIGH RES. Don’t forget to set the resolution to high.

It goes with the saying, the higher the resolution, the better the quality. Remember the FHM Philippines Sexiest Women 2013? Social Media experts ranted how poor the photos of their live social media update was during the event.

With the two pictures below, which is more appealing and like-worthy? The photo #1 of course, as it shows how gorgeous and sexy Marian Rivera is compared to photo #2 which it looks blurry and poor.

The definition is simple. Portrait mode is for portrait appropriate photos while the landscape orientation are for landscape shots.

Before snapping, determine first where the eye is going. Landscape mode is great for context, and it provides some background for your subject. Portrait on the other hand is helpful if you want to focus only on your subject. By looking at the photo below, which one looks best?

Source: https://charlottebellamyphotography.wordpress.com

FILTER MAGIC. When all seem hopeless, turn to filters.

“We already adjusted the settings and applied the basic photography rules but our photos are still not post-worthy,” whines you. Let me introduce to you ‘photo apps.’

There are millions of photo apps available in the market, but we love to use VSCOcam and Snapseed. Both apps will enhance your photos plus, they are both easy to use.

Source: http://www.hellobee.com/

Snapseed sample

Source: http://www.lifeproof.com/en/

VSCocam sample

There are no rules in phone photography, but there are guidelines which can often help you to improve and create impact on your visual output.